Connecticut western news., 1887-06-01
THE IGNOBLE RED MAN.
Some Instructive Facts Learned by
 a Senate Committee.

The Chairman of the Senate select commit tee directed to investigate certain allegations with respect to appointments to Indian trader ships, has returned from the West, whither 8 subcommittee went to take testimony.
 The statements of the traders, under oath, as to the amount of money they were com pelled to invest in their enterprise from $12, 900 to $50 900, and averaging proba- ply S20, ,0O0-seemed almost incredible, but were fully confirmed when the committee took occasion to make personal inspection of some of the stores and of the methods the traders were compelled to adopt. The Indians receive annuities and lease money, and are periodical ly in funds for few days at time. At all other seasons they are debtors of the traders. who usually have onC-half or three-quarters of their inyestme nts outstanding. The Indians pay their debts promptly enough to traders who remain in business and who can continue to trust them, but one whose doors are closed, or who, as in some cases, Is peremptorily or dered away from the Territory, has no chance of recovering more than 8 fraction of hisdues. When the new appointees are men of means and experience the stock of goods on hand, buildings and fixtures can sometimes be dis posed of to them, but the fact that they come armed with exclusive franchises places the outgoing trader at their mercy as regards prices, etc.
 After completing the taking of testimony at Arkansas City, the committee proceeded by wagon into the Territory to see as we'll as they ' and an Indian store were like, and to discover what part in the economy of Indian manage ment the trader was expected to play. lnci- dentally, this tiresome little trip, the Senator says, opened their eyes to some features of the Indian question which astonished them, though not immediately pertinent to the investigation they were expected to make. Southern Kansas he describes as one of the most fertile portions of the country, every square foot of which IS made to produce something for the benefit of | m ipll
 orchards, groves, green hedges, through and among which are seen neat cottages, substan- | tial barns and outbuildings, are the pleasing features of the universal landscape. The divid- ing line is marked to the extreme limit of wis ion wherever one crosses it by the abrupt dis continuance of all signs of human life and cultivation, and in their stead one sees only an ocean-like expanse of unproductive prairie.
 Almost directly south of Arkansas City lies the Raw Reservation-more than 120, 900 acres of as fine land as can be found in the West-the property of a tribal remnant numbering ex- actly 197 individuals counting women and children. These people are worthless begSars upon whom the best efforts of philanthropy or 25 miles across this reservation without dis covering single sign of inhabitaEcy except the wire fences of the cattlemen and the build- ings at the agency.
 Coming into the Osage county, they found
 800, 900 acres, reserved for about 1895 peo-
 
 bloods, uncultured and worthless as their ancestors of century ago. They toll not with their own hands, but employ white men to do it. The fastidious autocrats are daily seen coming to the agency, wrapped in their | gaudy blankets, to purchase supplies. For | their own consumption they select the most delicate viands, and will take nothing else, but for their white laborers they buy the cheaper | and coarser grades. The habits of these be- ings were not taken by the committee upon | ha1 boo, for
 week when the committee reached the agency,
 and is doubtless going on yet. It was only a | mile or two distant and the visitors became
 spectators. It was a religious festival and 200
 or 300 dusky pagans, braves, squaws and cubs, | with a thousand or more wolfish dogs, were tented there together. Only the braves par | ticipated in the dance. Among them were | stalwart fellows with grave Websterlan faces,
 short, fat men with jolly expressions, who
 laughed at their own failures to emulate the | high-stepping dudes, whose makeup no circus clown would dare initiate. One | we'll knit fellow only escaped stark
 nudity by an apology for clout about the middle, but his ankles and knees were be- dccked with strings of. sleigh bells, his neck
 and his arms with aTealth of bright bracelets. | While the dance was in progress the woman-- i polygsmous wives, bought like cattle and
 treated worse; dirty, bow-legged, tiat-faeed | slaves-were preparing the feast. Sucking
 babies bound upon slabs as if to be hung like
 plaques upon wal, lay about promiscuously
 while naked youtls of both sexes, and dogs | and puppies of alE degrees took part in the
 culinary performances. These matters, the | Senators say, were not marvels in themselves
 They might, barring the background of prairie | hills, the odors and some of the domestic de
 tails be looked for in Wild West show ol | among the Apaches and Sioux further West
 but to find that beings who had experienced tho | protecting power of the Government and tn,
 best efforts of American philanthropy for
 score of years had made no appreciable ad
 vance beyond the state of their savage ances | tors of the last century, was very unexpected
 and painful revelation. It was especially sal
 to learn that two of the sprightliest dancers
 covered almost with little looking glasses
 sleigh bells, rings, feathers and ribbons, wer
 graduates of the Carlisle Indian School, wh, | have relapsed into shameless sayagery.